Inside Facebook's Project to Make Realtors More Successful

Facebook's Scott Shapiro (Client Partner, Real Estate Industry) recently sat down with us to discuss Facebook's project to make real estate brokers and agents more successful on the Facebook & Instagram advertising platforms.

Facebook's "Top Provider Initiative" for Real Estate Advertising

For realtors, Scott is very adamant that Facebook has far exceeded its original intended utility as just a social media network.  It's become a valuable advertising platform and lead generator that empowers agents and teams with the opportunity to deploy full-funnel marketing capabilities.

In recent years, Scott has noticed that when he walks the halls of major real estate conventions he sees Facebook's logo everywhere.  However, for the longest time, he did not understand or personally know any of these third-party businesses that were advertising their solution using his company's platform.

This created a dilemma.  A large number of unknown companies were providing solutions to Facebook for real estate agents and teams.  And Scott and his team had no way to verify whether or not these third-party companies were utilizing best practices that would ensure success for realtors on Facebook's platforms.

This birthed Facebook's "Top Providers Initiative" for the real estate industry.  The project is focused on working with a select number of third-party real estate marketing companies (CINC being one of them) in close collaboration around product, ad placement, optimization strategies, and more. This initiative ensures that when agents or brokers decide to entrust their advertising to a third party, they can rest assured that the third party solution is recognized and verified by Facebook as a top-performing partner that is compliant with best practices.

In addition, through training, betas, and other resources provided by Scott and his team, third-party advertisers can better help their real estate agent clients with hands-on support from Facebook themselves on how to maximize the platform's effectiveness.

Realtors Can't Ignore Facebook Advertising Anymore

Facebook is really not a platform that can be ignored anymore by teams and agents.  

To this day, 50% of home buyers and sellers only talk to 1 agent before deciding to work with one.

With 75% of people on Facebook searching for a local mainstream business every week, agents' prospective future buyers and sellers are already on Facebook looking for future local business providers (real estate being one of them). 

To break through to people beyond just an agent's sphere, paid advertising is absolutely critical in realizing that goal.

Consumers are spending more and more time with video and story mediums, which Scott told us is a trend they have been tracking for the last couple of years.  In fact, every day, over 1 billion stories are shared across their platforms.  This parallels to the past with how newspapers were formatted with stories featured at the top of those publications.

Facebook does the same as story carousels are situated at the top of feeds as the content consumers love.  This is an element that Facebook will continue to explore for the foreseeable future.

Advantage of Working with Third-Party Facebook Marketing Companies

Another challenge for real estate teams and agents is letting their systems optimize to find consumers where they are.  Often times, agents make assumptions on what type of consumer they're trying to reach and how best to reach them.

Scott and his team at Facebook believe it is best not to try and guess but rather relinquish the responsibility to Facebook and a third-party provider's system which is optimized for this purpose.

As it relates to CINC, Scott points to the effectiveness of CINC's advertising and CRM tools with Facebook's mobile and digital advertising.  This combination becomes the "holy grail" any agent's business needs to reach the future home buyers and sellers critical for future growth. 

The digital space can be volatile as consumers change their virtual behavior frequently. Strategies employed and advised today might not necessarily apply in the years ahead.  This is okay.  It is the job of Facebook and third-party providers like CINC that are part of the "Top Provider Initiative" to stay engaged with these consumers and stay on top of the latest virtual behavioral trends.  It all about ensure that the advertising dollars of teams and agents goes farther and gets a better return on investment.

The "Top Provider Initiative" allows third-party providers to work closely with Facebook to stay ahead of the pack and to be ready for changes when they come.  It's a tremendous collaboration that monitors pipeline activity and allows for testing of new strategies and practices in order to maximize and take full advantage of Facebook's platform.  The collaboration is always looking for the next breakthrough strategy and really supports potentially impactful ideas to see their full fruition.

Ultimately, the main goal for Scott and his team is to help real estate teams and agents fuel business growth.  It is easy to get caught up in the minor details but really the one goal for utilizing the platform is the betterment and growth of real estate businesses.  This new "Top Provider Initiative" gives agents a better opportunity to partner more closely with Facebook (via third-party providers) to achieve this end.